"IT IS I. DO NOT BE AFRAID."

Homily for April 9^th, 2016: John 6:16-21.

          What began as a routine evening crossing of the lake soon turns into a nightmare for Jesus’ friends in their small boat. When they see a human figure approaching across the storm-tossed waves it is small wonder that they “began to be afraid.” It is Jesus. “It is I,” he calls out. “Do not be afraid!”

Like most people in antiquity, Jesus’ people, the Jews, regarded the sea as the domain of supernatural, demonic forces. To the Hebrew mind wind and waves were perilous: only God could master them. Repeatedly the psalms speak of God’s power to “rule the surging sea and calm the turmoil of its waves” (Ps. 89:10; cf. 93:3f; 107:23-30). By walking on the raging waves, and calming the stormy sea, Jesus shows himself to be acting as only God can do.

          This beautiful story speaks to each one of us individually. Somewhere in this church right now there may be someone facing a personal crisis: an illness, perhaps, your own or that of a loved one; a family problem; a humiliating failure; the sudden collapse of long held hopes, plans, and efforts. You are filled with fear. When you look down, you see only peril and ruin. But look up! Keep your eyes on Jesus. He still has power to save. 

          The story assures us that when the storm rages and the night is blackest; when we cannot see the way ahead; when we are bone weary with life’s struggle and our hearts fail us for fear, Jesus is close. He only seems to be absent. In reality he is never far from us. He knows at every moment the difficulties against which we contend. Across the storm waters of this world he comes to us and speaks the same words of assurance that he spoke to the terrified men in that small boat: “It is I, do not be afraid!”

That, friends, is the gospel. That is the good news.      

 

THEY WANTED TO MAKE HIM KING.

Homily for April 8^th, 2016: John 6:1-15.

Following the miraculous feeding of the great crowd in the wilderness, AJesus realized that they would come and carry him off to make him king, so he fled back to the mountain alone.@ The people were so impressed with the great Asign@ which Jesus had performed, that they want to capture the power the had seen in Jesus, so that it would be theirs always.

You cannot capture Jesus Christ. You cannot apprehend him or hold him fast. He will always elude your grasp. ADo not cling to me,@ the risen Lord said to Mary Magdalene in the garden of the resurrection. She wanted to resume the relationship of emotional intimacy with Jesus which she had enjoyed during his public ministry. The time for that was past.  ADo not cling to me,@ Jesus told her. ARather, go to my brothers and tell them, >I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God!=@ (John 20:17)

Jesus says the same to us today: ADo not cling to me.” At the end of every Mass the Lord sends us to others: his brothers and sisters C and ours too. As we journey life=s way, with all its twistings and turnings, Jesus is always with us. He remains close to us, even when we stray far from him. But he does not belong to us. We belong to him. He will be with us always C but he will also be ahead of us.

When you come to walk the last stretch of life=s journey, which each of us must walk alone, you will find that you are not alone. Jesus will be walking with you. And he will be waiting for you at the end of life=s road. AI am going to prepare a place for you,@ Jesus says later in John=s gospel, Athat where I am you also may be@ (14:3). That is Jesus= personal promise to you C and to me. And when Jesus Christ promises something, he always keeps his promise.

Here, then, is a question to ponder. When you meet the Lord at the end of life=s road, will you be encountering a stern judge, before whom you shrink in fear? Or will you be meeting a familiar, dearly loved friend? The Lord in his goodness allows us to choose what the encounter will be like. It is the most important choice we shall ever have. 

 

PETER'S CALL -- AND OURS

Third Sunday of Easter, Year C. John 21:1-19

AIM: To instill hope by showing the greatness of Peter=s vocation, despite his weakness. 

AHave you caught anything?@ Jesus calls out from the shore at dawn to his friends in their boat, weary from a night of unsuccessful fishing. What he really said was: AYou haven=t caught anything, have you?@ Jesus was having fun with them. In addition to the fun of surprising them by appearing at all, he was poking fun at their lack of success in the one thing they were supposed to be good at: catching fish. Not once in the gospels is there any record of Peter and his friends catching a single fish without Jesus= help. Here that help consists in the suggestion that they try again. As soon as they do, they feel the net heavy with fish. One of those in the boat tells Peter: AIt is the Lord.@ It is the unnamed Adisciple whom Jesus loved,@ as he is called in this gospel according to John. Peter and the others hurry ashore and find a charcoal fire with fish on it, and bread. What a beautiful human touch that is.  Knowing that they would be hungry after their long night=s labor, Jesus has made breakfast for them.

Did Peter recall another charcoal fire, not at daybreak but at night, in the courtyard of the High Priest=s house at Jerusalem, where Peter stood warming himself? We cannot know. It is clear, however, that he was soon remembering what he had done at that other charcoal fire. Jesus= thrice repeated question, ADo you love me?@ reminded Peter all too vividly of how he had done what Jesus had warned him, only hours before, that he would do C and what Peter had immediately boasted he would never do. Three times Peter had denied that he even knew his Master, even as Jesus was on trial for his life in a nearby room.

APeter was distressed,@ we heard in the gospel, because Jesus asked his question a third time. Of course he was distressed! The memory of that three-fold denial was painful. Peter=s thrice repeated assurance of love is his rehabilitation. In response to each pledge of love, Jesus assigns Peter responsibility: to feed Jesus= sheep. It is noteworthy, however, that the flock entrusted to Peter=s care remains the Lord=s: Amy lambs ... my sheep.@ Jesus himself is Athe chief shepherd,@ as we read in the First Letter of Peter (5:4).   

Why did Jesus give this responsibility to Peter, of all people? It cannot have been because Peter loved Jesus most. There was another present at that lakeside breakfast who clearly loved Jesus more; who never deserted him; who, alone of all Jesus= male disciples, stood by his cross as he died. If love were the basis for the office of chief shepherd after the Lord himself, the office would have gone to Athe disciple whom Jesus loved.@ 

Jesus gave the office of leader to the friend whose love was imperfect; whose impetuosity and weakness made the name Jesus gave him C Peter, the rock C as ironic as calling a 350-pound heavyweight ATiny.@ As long as Peter thought that he was strong; as long as he could boast that though all others might desert Jesus, he would remain faithful, Peter was not ready for leadership. For that Peter had to experience his weakness. He had to become convinced that without a power greater than his own, he could do nothing.

Part of that process was discovering that he could not even catch a fish without Jesus= help. Peter had to learn his weakness through the humiliation of failure: failure at fishing; failure in the face of Jesus= clear warning, failure despite his boast that he, at least, would never fail. And it was to this weak man, this boaster, that Jesus entrusted the care of his church.

Is there someone in this church today who feels weak? You have made so many good resolutions. Some you have kept. Many you have not. You have high ideals. Yet time and again you have compromised. You had so many dreams, hopes, plans. How many have you achieved? You wanted so much. You have settled for so little. If that is your story, you have a friend in heaven. His name is Simon Peter. 

If Peter=s story is yours C boasting followed by humiliating failure; impetuosity and then indecisiveness; pledges of loyalty no matter what, and then swift betrayal C if you see any of that in your life, or even all of that, then Jesus has a task for you. He is saying to you, as he said to Peter: AFollow me.@

If, like Peter, you have discovered that you are weak, that command is reassuring. Jesus does not ask you to be strong, for he knows your weakness. He does not ask you to be a pioneer or a leader. He knows that is too hard: that you would soon lose your way C or at least your nerve. He asks one thing alone. He asks you to follow him.

Speaking a few years ago in Rome about Peter, Pope Benedict XVI, said that we often think of Peter as weak before the resurrection, but afterwards B especially after the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost B as strong. The reality, the Pope said, is more complex. Despite the strengthening gift of the Holy Spirit, first given to Peter and the other disciples of Jesus at Pentecost, Peter retained to the end of his life something of his old weakness. Though remaining faithful to the Lord who had called him was sometimes easy for Peter, there were also times when it was difficult.  

For us too following Jesus Christ is not always easy, for he leads often through difficult ways. If you know your weakness, however, you have an advantage over those who still think they are strong. Then you will trust, as you try to follow your Master and Lord, not in any strength of your own, but only and always in the strength of Jesus Christ. His strength is always reliable; and it is always available. We have only to ask and Jesus is there.  

GOD DOES NOT RATION HIS SPIRIT.

Homily for April 6^th, 2016: John 3: 6-21.

          “God so loved he world …” we just heard. Perhaps someone is thinking: “But of course. Isn’t that obvious?” To many people it is not obvious. Christians who in past centuries used to be called Puritans consider the world an evil place, from which Jesus’ disciples must flee. This view is still alive and well today in certain quarters. It has a kernel of truth. The world organized apart from God, and against God is evil. Jesus refers to that world when he says, later in John’s gospel: “In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (16:33). In today’s gospel, however, Jesus is speaking of the world in a good sense: not the world of human marring, but the good world of God’s making. That world must be lovable, for God does not making anything that is not good.

          “God so loved the world,” Jesus goes on, “that he gave his only begotten Son.” He was the most that God had to give or could give. And God’s Son came into our world, and continues with us through the power of his Holy Spirit, not as some kind of great policeman or scold to frighten us into measuring up to his unrealistically high standards. No. Jesus came, and remains with us, “so that the world might be saved through him.” How?

          As we read on in today’s gospel we discover the answer. We are saved “by believing in him,” Jesus Christ. To believe in someone is to trust that person -- more, to entrust ourselves to him or her. Whoever does that, our gospel tells us, lives not in darkness, but in light – the light that shines from the face of Jesus Christ. How dark our world would be had he never come to us!

          We pray in this Mass, therefore, that we may entrust ourselves ever more completely to Jesus, himself the light of the world; and that we ourselves may be lenses or prisms of his light in a dark and often fearful world.

         

         

"GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD . . . "

Homily for April 6^th, 2016: John 3: 6-21.

          “God so loved he world …” we just heard. Perhaps someone is thinking: “But of course. Isn’t that obvious?” To many people it is not obvious. Christians who in past centuries used to be called Puritans consider the world an evil place, from which Jesus’ disciples must flee. This view is still alive and well today in certain quarters. It has a kernel of truth. The world organized apart from God, and against God is evil. Jesus refers to that world when he says, later in John’s gospel: “In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (16:33). In today’s gospel, however, Jesus is speaking of the world in a good sense: not the world of human marring, but the good world of God’s making. That world must be lovable, for God does not making anything that is not good.

          “God so loved the world,” Jesus goes on, “that he gave his only begotten Son.” He was the most that God had to give or could give. And God’s Son came into our world, and continues with us through the power of his Holy Spirit, not as some kind of great policeman or scold to frighten us into measuring up to his unrealistically high standards. No. Jesus came, and remains with us, “so that the world might be saved through him.” How?

          As we read on in today’s gospel we discover the answer. We are saved “by believing in him,” Jesus Christ. To believe in someone is to trust that person -- more, to entrust ourselves to him or her. Whoever does that, our gospel tells us, lives not in darkness, but in light – the light that shines from the face of Jesus Christ. How dark our world would be had he never come to us!

          We pray in this Mass, therefore, that we may entrust ourselves ever more completely to Jesus, himself the light of the world; and that we ourselves may be lenses or prisms of his light in a dark and often fearful world.

         

         

THE SPIRIT BLOWS US HOME.

Homily for April 5^th, 2016: John 3:7-15.

          In the passage immediately before today’s gospel reading, Jesus has told Nicodemus that he must be “born again.” How was that possible, Nicodemus asked? How could someone enter again into this mother’s womb and be born anew? Jesus explained that he was talking, not about biological birth, but about birth “from above” – heavenly birth, through water and the spirit. We understand (though Nicodemus did not) that Jesus was talking about baptism. 

          In today’s gospel Jesus expands on the theme of spirit. In Greek, the language of the New Testament, the word for spirit is pneuma. Our English medical terms are almost all from Greek roots; so we find pneuma in the name for a sickness of the lungs: pneumonia. In antiquity pneuma designated both a wind and a person’s breath. That is why the gospels speak about Jesus giving up his spirit when he died. His breath went out of him.

          Using the same word, Jesus speaks also about the winds of the air. In antiquity people believed that the winds came from God. Winds were, they thought, God’s breath. The winds we hear and feel blow from different directions. We hear the sound the wind makes, Jesus tells Nicodemus, but we do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

Then comes a crucial sentence: “So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” We are born of the spirit in baptism and in confirmation. At Pentecost we hear about the Spirit of God coming dramatically, like a strong driving wind. That we are Christians in a land undreamed of by anyone in Jerusalem on that first Pentecost day is proof that the Spirit=s Astrong driving wind@ did not blow in vain. Those first touched by that wind were blown into places, and situations, they never dreamed of.  Even those who never left Jerusalem found their lives utterly changed.

This same wind of the Spirit is blowing in the Church today. Is it blowing in your life? Or are you afraid of that wind B of what it might do to you, and where it might blow you? Cast aide fear. The wind of God=s Spirit, like the winds of the sky, blows from different directions. But in the end this wind blows all who are driven by it to the same place. The wind of God Spirit blows us home B home to God.   

 

 

"DO NOT BE AFRAID."

Homily for April 4^th, 2016: The Annunciation. Luke 1:26-38.

          “Do not be afraid,” the angel Gabriel says to Mary. Girls married very early in those days. Mary may have been only 14 or 15. To be visited by an angel was no ordinary experience. Mary did not know what was happening to her. Of course she was afraid – “greatly troubled,” Luke says. To reassure her, the angel calls Mary “full of grace.” Grace is God’s love, poured into our hearts through the power of God’s Holy Spirit. How wonderful for this young teenager to hear that she was filled with God’s love – the greatest and most powerful love there is.

          Only after speaking this reassurance does the angel tell Mary that even before her planned marriage to Joseph she is going to be pregnant. No wonder that she asks, “How can this be?” In response Mary hears the stunning news that the father of her child will not be Joseph. He will be conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit. Hence, the angel says, “the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”

Did Mary understand that? How could she? Only later, decades later, did all this start to make sense to her. At the time she understood only this: that in a little village, where gossip was rife, and everyone knew everybody’s own business, she was going to be an unmarried mother. Without hesitation, however, Mary responds in trusting faith: “I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

More than thirty years later, the Son whom Mary bore would say, not once but often, what the angel had said to his mother, at the time he was conceived: “Be not afraid.” Jesus spoke those words to his disciples in a boat, when they saw him coming toward them on the water in the midst of a storm (Mt 14:27). He spoke the same words to Peter, James, and John on the mountain at his Transfiguration (Mt 17:7 and parallels). He repeated them to Jairus, the synagogue official who, after asking healing for his little daughter, was told that the girl had already died (Mark 6:50).

The Lord is saying those same words to us, right now: “Be not afraid.” Trust me. I am with you. I shall be with you – always. On this day when we celebrate Mary’s acceptance of the Lord’s call, we ask her to pray for us, that like her, we too may say our yes to God, in good times, but also in bad.